Generally, a slide rail assembly is used to enable a furniture part to be opened and closed with respect to another furniture part. With the advancement of slide rail technology, the market is now supplied with an undermount drawer slide, which is mounted on the bottom of a drawer and stays hidden from view (i.e., beneath the drawer) when the drawer is pulled out with respect to the body of a cabinet.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,231,189 B2, for example, discloses an undermount drawer slide that can prevent a drawer from sliding out of a cabinet by accident. This undermount drawer slide (10) includes a first rail (12) and a second rail (14) displaceable with respect to the first rail (12). The first rail (12) has a first installation section (22) and a second installation section (24), which are securely mounted at the rear and front ends of a sidewall of a cabinet (38) respectively. As the vertical distances from the first and second installation sections (22, 24) to a horizontal reference plane are different, the drawer slide (10) has a rearward inclination configuration, inclined at an angle R, once mounted to the cabinet (38). The top wall (28) of the second rail (14) of the undermount drawer slide has a protrusion (34) propping the bottom of a drawer (40) and adapted to compensate for the angle of inclination of a drawer panel (42), wherein the inclination may occur when the drawer panel (42) is mounted to the cabinet (38). Thus, the undermount drawer slide allows the verticality of the drawer panel (42) to be corrected to ensure that the drawer panel (42) is level with respect to the cabinet (38).
U.S. Pat. No. 8,870,313 B2 discloses a pull-out guide for a drawer, wherein the pull-out guide includes a first holding element (5) and a second holding element (15). The first holding element (5) and the second holding element (15) have a first height adjustment mechanism (6) and a second height adjustment mechanism (16) respectively. As shown in FIG. 3(a) and FIG. 3(b) accompanying the specification of the '313 B2 patent, the first height adjustment mechanism (6) includes a base support (10), which has two support brackets (20a, 20b). When a drawer (2) is connected to a connection element (7) of the first holding element, the drawer bottom (2b) partly rests on the two support brackets (20a, 20b). As a result of the connection to the drawer via the connection element (7), vertical movement of the base support (10) is transferred to the drawer (2).
According to FIG. 6 accompanying the specification of the '313 B2 patent, the two support brackets (20a, 20b) of the first height adjustment mechanism (6) are mounted respectively in the corresponding openings in a pull-out rail (3a) and thus occupy the bottom space of the pull-out rail (3a), making it impossible for other slide rail components to use this space freely.
As market demands and operational needs vary, it has been a common goal of the slide rail industry to develop an adjusting device for use with a slide rail to adjust the height or angle of inclination of the object carried by the slide rail.